Let’s Fix Work Episode 69
Bill Perry is the founder of The Innovatus Group. Bill was referred to me by one of the listeners of the show. They described him as a Sherpa. Yes, a Sherpa. While that phrase is often overused, Bill is the real deal. He offers extremely personalized executive development, coaching, and team training. The people who work with him rave about their results.
Bill comes at his work from the heart. He is plainspoken. He does not use any buzzwords and he believes in a better you, better teams, better business, and better life. Bill truly believes that in order to be a good employee, you have to live with integrity. If you want to be a leader, you have to live from the inside out. Today we talk about working human and leading from the heart. So if you’re interested in listening to a conversation about consulting and leadership and hearing from someone who brings his whole heart to the conversation, I know you’re going to enjoy this episode of Let’s Fix Work.
In this episode, you’ll hear:
- Over-indexing on careers when things are broken at home or under-indexing on their careers when things are broken at work and why it happens
- A conversation about integrity, Bill’s personal take on it and how he makes it a part of his work
- The biggest challenge leaders are facing in order to restore integrity to themselves, plus what is holding leaders back
- How self-care is important, including getting quality sleep, moving more, and eating healthy
- The biggest challenges small teams face and how Bill is helping to solve them
- As a coach, when do you know it’s time to send someone to a therapist versus continuing to stay along with them
- We talk about how appreciation is the language of engagement, discuss our different love languages and how it all plays into fixing work
KEY TAKEAWAYS
HOW CAN LEADERS RESTORE INTEGRITY WITHIN THEMSELVES?
If you don’t take care of yourself first, then you’re not available to the people around you to take care of them. Take care of yourself first. That seems selfish, but in today’s world, it’s utterly selfish not to do so. Be fully present to the people you work with and live with in order to create a better me and a better team. Serve the folks supporting your dream, your vision, and whose vision you’re supporting. When the team does well, the business does well and that makes it better for all of us.
WHAT ARE THE BIGGEST CHALLENGES SMALL TEAMS FACE?
The biggest challenge to small teams is that the leaders tend to wear multiple hats. They’re in the weeds of doing the thing that they’re passionate about and at the same time trying to manage growing vision, increasing opportunity, maintaining some level of innovation and creativity. They simply lose their hearts somewhere and lose sight of their mission.
WHAT ARE SOME WAYS SMALL TEAMS CAN ADDRESS THEIR BIGGEST CHALLENGES?
Engage with leaders and leadership teams of smaller organizations to increasingly free some marginal space, some liminal space for those leaders to get their heart back. Because it is easy for a leader who wears multiple hats to lose heart for the thing that gave them so much joy. Spend time with those leaders to help them remember and recover what got them into this to begin with so they get some passion back.
AS A COACH, HOW DO YOU KNOW WHEN IT’S TIME TO SEND SOMEONE TO A THERAPIST VERSUS CONTINUING TO STAY WORKING WITH THEM?
Here is some advice from Bill Perry: First, make it very clear repeatedly in both team engagements and one-on-one engagements that you are not a therapist and the conversations that you’re entering into, you are not entering into on a therapeutic level. Managing that so that it doesn’t disrupt the forward progress is the intent of the meeting. I’ve had a couple of those occasions where I’ve had to say, “I appreciate your vulnerability and sharing what you did, but what you’re wrestling with right now is not appropriate for this conversation. You need some help that I can’t offer.” I certainly do not posit myself either as a therapist or an expert. That way I try to step back and let them have their story. And if they need help, I encourage that. But at the end of the day, you have to let people write their own stories and simply recommend and encourage and invite them into something different from the outside.
Resources from this episode:
Instagram: thebillperryshow
Twitter: @innovatusgroup
Grab Bill’s PDF Download: How To Tell If Your Top Performers Are Ready to Leave
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